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Things to do when you're about to die...

Hello Folks!

Now, whether we accept a traditional interpretation of rebirth or not, having a practice to return to once we know that we're about to kick the bucket sure sounds like a good idea. Obviously, when that time comes we won't necessarily know for sure that we'll be able to physically sit Zazen.

Anyway, here's one of my all time favourite quotes from Master Huang-Po regarding that topic (which in essence sounds to me a whole lot like the Tibetan Book of the Dead without the cultural baggage):

"If an ordinary man, when he is about to die, could only see the five elements of consciousness as void; the four physical elements as not constituting an 'I'; the real Mind as formless and neither coming nor going; his nature as something neither commencing at his birth nor perishing at his death, but as whole and motionless in its very depths; his Mind and environmental objects as one - if he could really accomplish this, he would receive Enlightenment in a flash. He would no longer be entangled by the Triple World; he would be a World-Transcendor. He would be without even the faintest tendency towards rebirth. If he should behold the glorious sight of all the Buddhas coming to welcome him, surrounded by every kind of gorgeous manifestation, he would feel no desire to approach them. If he should behold all sorts of horrific forms surrounding him, he would experience no terror. He would just be himself, oblivious of conceptual thought and one with the Absolute. He would have attained the state of unconditioned being. This, then, is the fundamental principle."
(Translation: Blofeld)

Re: Things to do when you're about to die...

Anyway, here's one of my all time favourite quotes from Master Huang-Po regarding that topic (which in essence sounds to me a whole lot like the Tibetan Book of the Dead without the cultural baggage):

Hi Guys,

Might I suggest, in understanding this quote, we not overlook what Master Huang-Po was saying at its heart ... easy to do as his beautiful words in this translation, and the use of lovely images, may cause one to miss the central point. It does appear, at first glance, like a strange and mystical practice because of some of the imagery, but I believe it is very practical guidance ...

"If an ordinary man, when he is about to die, could only see the five elements of consciousness as void; the four physical elements as not constituting an 'I'; the real Mind as formless and neither coming nor going; his nature as something neither commencing at his birth nor perishing at his death, but as whole and motionless in its very depths; his Mind and environmental objects as one - if he could really accomplish this, he would receive Enlightenment in a flash. He would no longer be entangled by the Triple World; he would be a World-Transcendor.

The "in a nutshell" version may be this (the "Cliff Notes" version):

See all aspects of "self/body/mind/world" as "empty", drop all thoughts of "self" "other" "this" "that" "life" "death" ..... and thus find "Being/True Self/Mind" by dropping all thought of "being/small self/ mind" ..... then this "death" thing turns out to be no big deal. Granted, Master Huang Po says it in a a rather more florid and powerful way (especially in this lovely translation), but the point he was making is clear..

And, please, notice a certain resemblance to our "Shikantaza" Zazen Practice in which we "just sit", dropping all thought of "self" "other" "this" "that" "life" "death" etc. etc. My first teacher, Azuma Ikuo of Sojiji, once said that sitting Zazen is rehearsal for a graceful death ... and also practice for living a graceful life in the meantime.

He would no longer be entangled by the Triple World; he would be a World-Transcendor. He would be without even the faintest tendency towards rebirth.

Whether Master Huang Po meant literal "rebirth" in a new body or in some other world or realm [he might have in his day and age]. or just "rebirth" moment by moment on your death bed [he certainly meant this too], the point is really the same: Leave thoughts of the world behind, do not be entangled by the universe. Dissolve into the universe on your death bed and let it flow on, flow on where it will.

If he should behold the glorious sight of all the Buddhas coming to welcome him, surrounded by every kind of gorgeous manifestation, he would feel no desire to approach them. If he should behold all sorts of horrific forms surrounding him, he would experience no terror.

This is another way of saying. "even if a army of angels or a thousand fire breathing devils" were to come to meet you at your death bed, you would not give a sh--t.

This is also the point of our Shikantaza Practice dropping all thought of "good" "bad" "fear" "fearlessness" "Buddhas" "devils" in one perfect instant of Zazen.

He would just be himself, oblivious of conceptual thought and one with the Absolute. He would have attained the state of unconditioned being. This, then, is the fundamental principle."
(Translation: Blofeld)

Ditto. Be one with the universe, man, then just drop over dead.

My apologies to the several English teachers and writers we have on board, as I took a meat cleaver to a beautiful piece of literature in order to underscore the central points.

I might also add these instructions for how to die [Jundo's death poem] ...

"breath ... breath ... breath ... cease breathing ... let go"

Gassho, Jundo

PS- Might I point folks to a couple of my personal favorite talks on the Leaf Blog not unrelated to this? I don't have the artistry of Master Huang Po, but I do what I can :-)

If one is able to be lucid toward the point of death these suggetions are ok.

However, I work in places where those who are dying are not ususally coherent. There are Alzheimer's or Parkinson's or dementia or brain mets or drug complications before death and, many times, it's over a series of years, not just days or weeks. My father, for instance, had advanced Alzheimer's for about 10 years where he barely remembered his wife, much less that he even had any children. Then, a couple of weeks before his actual death, he had a stroke and was completely unconscious before his physical death.

Being a little behind in the book club reading this week, I discovered that Joko's topic in Tragedy ( p.119) is right on this same point. May I recommend it to anyone interested? It is in Joko's typical down to earth style.

Well, let me ask first whether someone has a scanner, as it is only a couple of pages. Can anyone scan it for Lynn? I found it to be basically following the points we had been discussing here.

Originally Posted by Lynn

If one is able to be lucid toward the point of death these suggetions are ok.

However, I work in places where those who are dying are not ususally coherent. There are Alzheimer's or Parkinson's or dementia or brain mets or drug complications before death and, many times, it's over a series of years, not just days or weeks. My father, for instance, had advanced Alzheimer's for about 10 years where he barely remembered his wife, much less that he even had any children. Then, a couple of weeks before his actual death, he had a stroke and was completely unconscious before his physical death.

So, what then?

Gassho~

My mother also had a long, debilitating road to her death (breast cancer plus a series of strokes). It may sound cold, but "old age, sickness and death" were at the very heart of the Buddha's search ... and I believe he came to embrace even that as just part of life. At the very same time my mother was reduced to single word sentences and diapers, I had a 1 year old baby rising out of single word sentences and diapers. In this society, we tend to be repulsed by the former and celebrate the latter, but I do not see why. Flowers blossom for a time, then fade. New flowers come.

Part of me (only part) is rather hoping that I continue with these netcasts long enough that I get to die online (hopefully slowly, not getting hit by a bus or anything in the meantime). What we are practicing does not mean very much if it does not lead to a graceful existing and a graceful exiting. I think.

Gassho, Jundo

PS- A grand book, and I am very much looking forward to the movie ...

New York Times
November 30, 2007
Body Unwilling, a Mind Takes Flight

By A. O. SCOTT
Published: November 30, 2007

Julian Schnabel has made three feature films: “Basquiat,” “Before Night Falls” and now “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” All are biographical, examining the lives of real people, and in each case the protagonist struggles with a condition of literal or metaphorical imprisonment. Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mr. Schnabel’s younger colleague in the New York art scene of the 1980s, is trapped by addiction and by his outsider status. Reinaldo Arenas, the gay Cuban poet whose memoir was the basis of “Before Night Falls,” is censored, harassed and locked up by successive dictatorships.

Jean-Dominique Bauby, a French fashion magazine editor and the author of the international best seller on which “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” is based, suffered an even more extreme form of confinement. In his early 40s, he suffered a stroke that left him in a rare affliction called “locked-in syndrome.” He retained vision and hearing, and his mind continued to function perfectly, but his body was almost completely paralyzed. He could not move or speak. In the film a friend, visiting him in the hospital in Berck, a wind-swept seaside town in northern France, reports the latest gossip from the cafes of Paris: “Have you heard? Jean-Dominique is a vegetable.”

“What kind of vegetable?” Jean-Dominique wonders. “A carrot? A pickle?” Like his condition, the metaphor is cruel, but not altogether unredeemable. As we come to understand in the course of this fierce and lovely film, his existence is not that of a vegetable but rather of a garden, a hothouse of consciousness, memory and ecstatic imagination.

Jean-Dominique is played by Mathieu Amalric, a French actor whose twitching, antic physicality makes the character’s immobility all the more painful. But “The Diving Bell,” true to its hero and its literary source, is neither morbid nor mawkish. Propped up in a wheelchair, able to communicate only by blinking his left eye (the other, in one especially nightmarish scene, has been sewn shut to prevent infection), he remains a sensualist, a bon vivant and a keen literary wit.

But never a saint. Before his stroke Jean-Dominique led a life of glamour, pleasure and self-indulgence, for which he never apologizes. He had recently left Céline (Emmanuelle Seigner), his longtime partner and the mother of his three children, an abandonment that seemed to follow a series of betrayals. Céline appears, nonetheless, at the hospital in Berck, fighting back tears and demonstrating a loyalty that comes close to masochism. In spite of his lapses, she clearly loves Jean-Dominique, and she is not alone. Besides other women (Marina Hands, most memorably), there are acquaintances, colleagues (notably Isaach de Bankole) and Jean-Dominique’s father, a rogue of the old school played with magnificent poignancy by Max von Sydow.

The phrase “triumph of the human spirit” hovers over “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” along with a swarm of other empty, uplifting clichés. But Mr. Schnabel and the screenwriter, Ronald Harwood, have other themes in mind. Limitation, constraint, incarceration — these may be, as I’ve suggested, the shared premises of Mr. Schnabel’s films (and also of some of Mr. Harwood’s work, notably his script for “The Pianist”).

Their common subject, however, is freedom, the self-willed liberation of a difficult, defiant individual. But Mr. Schnabel is not content simply to state or to dramatize this idea. Rather, he demonstrates his own imaginative freedom in every frame and sequence, dispensing with narrative and expository conventions in favor of a wild, intuitive honesty.

And yet he also shows astonishing formal control. The movie begins claustrophobically, as we see the blurry bustle of the hospital room from Jean-Dominique’s hazy, panicked perspective. Faces loom suddenly and awkwardly into view, while his captive consciousness writhes in its cage, trying to make contact with the world outside.

After a while it does, with the help of a speech therapist (the marvelously sensitive Marie-Josée Croze) who patiently teaches Jean-Dominique to turn his left eyelid into a means of communication. She sits beside him, reciting the alphabet and stopping when he blinks, piecing together words and sentences from his signals.

Later an amanuensis (Anne Consigny) takes her place, and together she and Jean-Dominique compose the compact, lyrical book that will become Mr. Schnabel’s expansive, passionate film. Their attention also introduces both the patient and the audience to an intense, nonsexual intimacy that is itself a form of love.

As Jean-Dominique’s eloquence takes flight, so does Mr. Schnabel’s. Condemned to live in an eternal present, Jean-Dominique is also freed from the tyranny of time, and so the film ranges freely into fantasy, speculation and remembrance, given shape not by a plot but by the ecstatic logic of images and associations. Working with the brilliant cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, he uses light and color to convey the world of sensations from which Jean-Dominique is exiled, but which he appreciated all the more acutely for that reason.

And so, curiously enough, a movie about deprivation becomes a celebration of the richness of experience, and a remarkably rich experience in its own right. In his memoir Mr. Bauby performed a heroic feat of alchemy, turning horror into wisdom, and Mr. Schnabel, following his example and paying tribute to his accomplishment, has turned pity into joy.

“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has some sexual situations.

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY

Opens today in New York and Los Angeles.

Directed by Julian Schnabel; written (in French, with English subtitles) by Ronald Harwood, based on the book “Le Scaphandre et le Papillon” by Jean-Dominique Bauby; director of photography, Janusz Kaminski; edited by Juliette Welfling; music by Paul Cantelon; produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Jon Kilik; released by Miramax Films. Running time: 1 hour 52 minutes.

Re: Things to do when you're about to die...

Interesting. Some random thoughts:
To me, being "oblivious of conceptual thought and one with the Absolute" sounds like you are dead. The "self" is gone then, right? Death as nirvana, nirvana as death... not a new thought, right? Can't escape death/nirvana, right? We are already enlightened just as we are all going to die. There it is, but I guess not just waiting to die/be enlightened/reach nirvana, etc. is the point, to live LIFE before that inevitable happens.

Re: Things to do when you're about to die...

Couldn't sleep this morning, so in that twilight state my mind turned to death. Well, sort of, my random thoughts here popped up and I tried to put some order to them. Here goes:
Dead means no more brain activity. No more brain activity means dropping all thoughts and desires, which is nirvana. Unfortunately, you are dead, which means unconscious and unaware of nirvana, so death does not seem to be a helpful or insightful of state, as far as we can tell. Being alive, on the other hand, provides you the option of doing zazen through which you can learn to drop all thoughts and desires, which is nirvana. Fortunately, you are alive, which means conscious and aware, so being alive doing zazen is a helpful and insightful state that can provide the same realization of nirvana as death, but while aware of it, thus transcending life and death. It's quite simple, really.

Re: Things to do when you're about to die...

Originally Posted by AlanLa

Couldn't sleep this morning, so in that twilight state my mind turned to death. Well, sort of, my random thoughts here popped up and I tried to put some order to them. Here goes:
Dead means no more brain activity. No more brain activity means dropping all thoughts and desires, which is nirvana. Unfortunately, you are dead, which means unconscious and unaware of nirvana, so death does not seem to be a helpful or insightful of state, as far as we can tell. Being alive, on the other hand, provides you the option of doing zazen through which you can learn to drop all thoughts and desires, which is nirvana. Fortunately, you are alive, which means conscious and aware, so being alive doing zazen is a helpful and insightful state that can provide the same realization of nirvana as death, but while aware of it, thus transcending life and death. It's quite simple, really.

You are already dead. You just keep coming back to life so you forget it.

Re: Things to do when you're about to die...

Originally Posted by AlanLa

Dead means no more brain activity. No more brain activity means dropping all thoughts and desires, which is nirvana. Unfortunately, you are dead, which means unconscious and unaware of nirvana, so death does not seem to be a helpful or insightful of state, as far as we can tell. Being alive, on the other hand, provides you the option of doing zazen through which you can learn to drop all thoughts and desires, which is nirvana. Fortunately, you are alive, which means conscious and aware, so being alive doing zazen is a helpful and insightful state that can provide the same realization of nirvana as death, but while aware of it, thus transcending life and death. It's quite simple, really.

Hey Alan,

I am going to dive in here with some personal interpretations beyond what I usually share with folks ...

I would not be so quick to jump to conclusions about consciousness after physical death or its absence.

I would presume that we return to the state much as was found prior to our birth ... which, good chance, had something very special to it, since we were born from it ... and here we are ... all despite the seeming ridiculously poor chance of that having happened (when all the possible alternative outcomes are pondered in hindsight). I believe the dice were loaded and that, in some intimate fashion, we are the universe (or, better said, what is more fundamental than that) seeing and otherwise experiencing itself through our senses ... much as a tree lives and breathes through each one of its leaves. When we die, the show does not end ... for we are each merely leaves dropping off the tree which we are (which we are in the most intimate meaning), and that tree does not end at the dropping of the single little leaf.

I would say, if you ask me, that there likely exists a state beyond both small human concepts of "conscious" or the lack thereof, and where several other philosophical questions are resolved when human categories are dropped. For example ... since we cannot picture a realm which is either causeless in its origins, or caused (for then, the old dilemma about the causeless cause of the cause) the solution to the riddle is likely a state beyond small human concepts of either "caused" or "uncaused". It is something else which makes the puzzle moot. Likewise for consciousness vs. its lack. In many ways, human beings are as ants crawling on the tea cart of a Boeing 747 in midair trying, with their little ant brains, to figure out what it is and how aerodynamics work. Best for the ants to just continue their crawl over the sugar cubes and enjoy the flight! Where the plane goes is their going!

Our Zen practice involves a great deal of wisdom in allowing this universe to go where it is going, for we have the awareness that ... in one way or another ... this universe is us, and where it goes is where we are all going. I very much doubt that you and I just happened to pop up in these rather precious lives as a freak or pointless event ... even if the "point" and "destination" (if both "point" and "destination" are not also words that are a human invention) is the airplane's point and not the ants'.

Although Zen teachers usually advise against idle speculation as distracting from the main focus of the practice (which is this life right underfoot now ... just crawling over the sugar cubes or living as a little leaf in the sunshine), I do not believe that anything I wrote above is very far from "orthodox" in traditional Buddhist interpretations.

Re: Things to do when you're about to die...

Jundo wrote: I would not be so quick to jump to conclusions about consciousness after physical death or its absence.

No conclusions meant, which is why I hedged by saying '"as far as we can tell" when referring to death not being all that helpful of a state.

I do plead guilty to oversimplifying into dualities (conscious/unconscious, life/death) when the whole point is to get beyond such dualities. The comment "simple, really" was meant ironically, but I forgot to put in an emoticon to signal that. I find it sometimes helpful to simplify things in order to see their larger complexity more clearly. The whole "transcends life and death" thing has always been a puzzle to me. It just so happened that this thread prompted me to work on that puzzle and I did so as part of the thread. I feel I get it now better than ever, which is not to say I truly get it, just that I may be closer to a fuller realization. Honestly, I was afraid that the next post here would be from one of the many here that really do know what they are talking about on this topic, and that that person's post would be along the lines of "that's the stupidest explanation ever!" So far so good on avoiding that :wink:

Gassho (from the ant that is slowly working his way toward the cockpit of that jetliner, yet unsure of what to do once he gets there)

Re: Things to do when you're about to die...

A few years ago, a very good friend was diagnosed with a virulent form of terminal cancer and (although he was still reasonably healthy in outward appearance) just a few weeks to live. He pressed me to offer him my own view of life and death. I hesitated, but did so. The "airplane" story I told to my friend Danny is a bit more elaborate version of the "ants on the 747" .... I am going to BOLDFACE a couple of sentences in there for emphasis ....

How can I put this? Perhaps, in the Zen perspective, life is like being born ... for some mysterious reason ... in a certain seat on a trans-Pacific flight (I thought the analogy appropriate, given how much time we both spend crossing the Pacific to Japan). We are not quite sure how we got here on this flight, who paid for the ticket, the destination ... and certainly, we are not quite sure who is in the cockpit or how the plane got made. However, something has seemingly gone to a lot of trouble to put us on this plane (earthly plane? har har). And, the movie is not bad (sometimes comedy sometimes tears), the champagne is cold, and the view out the window spectacular. Sure, some of the other passengers are hard to bear (often fighting amongst themselves), not everything is to our liking, and sometimes it downright is unpleasant. But the 747 seems to be moving along on its own power. So, nothing to do but enjoy the ride.

But there is more to it than that ...

For, in our perspective, we can see that we are all connected. I don't mean that we see some loose, indirect connection we all have. It is precisely that we see that the airplane and all the other passengers, the motor, the wings, movie and all the seats, and the guy in the cockpit are all part of you too, or are really you, or you are them ... or, better put, you, Danny, are the plane ... or even better put, there is just the flying).

...

And it sure seems like something went to a lot of trouble to make something as elaborate as a plane. A great mathematician and physicist [Fred Hoyle] once said ...

"The chance that higher [sentient] life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein... I am at a loss to understand biologists' widespread compulsion to deny what seems to me to be obvious." ("Hoyle on Evolution," Nature, Vol. 294, 12 November 1981, p. 105.)

The fact [I am writing a book on this] that so many a priori conditions were required to set our 747-world just right in order for us to share this e-mail leads me to conclude that our appearance on this plane is not mere happenstance, and the trip not without purpose (although I do not clearly know the nature of nature's purpose).

So, have a good flight, even with the turbulence and bad food. It's all part of the flying and we are not really at the controls.

Some Buddhists might also add that you are working through what needs to be worked through (karma and all that). I, personally, don't know about that, but it could be I suppose. Certainly, it is one explanation for how you ended up as "Danny," and not as some piece of luggage, coffee cup, headrest, other passenger or ... seemingly much, much more likely ... nothing at all. I can attest that this "Danny" is certainly one of a kind. (If I may continue with the silly plane analogy), why did you end up in seat 37D, and not some other seat, or in the baggage compartment, and why on the darn plane at all?? Maybe there is no reason at all, maybe it was an assigned seat.

Oh, and embracing the whole things means that it is okay to be pissed off, disappointed, etc., sometimes at being sick. That's what human beings do at times when we have been diverted, seemingly, from where we wanted the plane to go.

Your friend, Jundo ... quite often, a white knuckle flier

We also had a "Big Questions" thread on this topic which elaborated on many of these things ... and why, compared perhaps to most other religions (including other flavors of Buddhism) Zennies tend to be less preoccupied with "what comes next" because of their focus on "what comes now" ... Link here.